"Girls' Day" offers new avenues
"Girls' Day" offers new avenues
Keywords: Women, School leavers, Careers, Germany
A nationwide initiative to broaden job opportunities for young women in Germany was launched on 1 May by the trade union federation DGB (Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund). It announced what it called "Girls' Day" to make school-leavers aware of opportunities in careers outside the parameters artificially imposed for generations, and to draw in firms in more male-orientated employment to "come out" and show what girls can do.
"`Girls' Day' will give our young women the possibility of getting to know how to shape a fruitful and lucrative career in new avenues", said DGB vice-chairman Ursula Engelen-Kefer, as she launched the programme in Berlin. She said that for so many girls there are still so many openings in the kind of job that does not pay well and offers an uncertain future. More than half of all female apprentices pick from a range of about ten kinds of career, including inevitably shop sales and hairdressing.
Top target for new openings in the "Girls' Day" initiative programme throughout this year is the IT and communications sector, where the motivation is twofold: offering young women new kinds of well-paid work, and helping to meet what is already a growing skills shortage, anyway. Business leaders, trade associations and research centres are being called in to give support and promote seminars. The response is already such that "Girls' Day" is to be set up every year on 1 May.
